If you don't get help at Charter ...

by Brian Keith Giovannini

I've seen students hooked on a myriad of substances. I had a friend
once who went a whole semester in a drunken stupor. Another pal of mine,
not quite as close, used to smoke at least three jays a day to keep his
mind "focused on his creativity." I've seen students on pot, acid, meth, X
-- the whole gamut.

The most pathetic addiction I've ever seen, however, is that of my dear
friend Worgl who is hooked on Internet Relay Chat.

For those who are not familiar with the mechanics of IRC, it operates
much like a party-line phone call, with people joining and leaving
"#channels" throughout the day.

The #channels are usually named relevantly. The discussion on
#pinkfloyd usually has Pink Floyd undercurrents. The discussions on
#beastsex ... well, let's just say I wouldn't know.

IRC is considered by many to be the underbelly of the Internet -- chat
rooms where conversations are rarely of an intellectual nature. Unlike its
intellectual Net counterpart, UseNet, where people occasionally post
insightful, well-reasoned, messages, IRC provides no such stimulating
discussion. Instead, IRC conversations usually devolve into a name-calling
tantrum, a fit of silly nonsequiturs, or an act of pointless Netsex. The
IRC user is indeed searching for that "quick fix."

This brings me back to my friend Worgl. I have watched his progress
from the first day he tentatively tried out a few channels after being
lured onto IRC by his girlfriend. He is now a full-fledged IRC addict,
spending sometimes more than 16 hours a day facing the monitor, talking to
unseen shadows in the crevices of cyberspace.

I have seen him stay awake for 36 hours at a time, rarely sleeping or
eating for fear of missing some conversational tidbit on his favorite
channel. I've seen him miss work because he fell asleep just moments before
the alarm rang. I've seen him become more bitter and hostile toward his
friends; his grades have slipped; his finances are in shambles -- all of
this due to the addictive nature of IRC.

With whom does he converse? Well, I've had the most unpleasant
opportunity to sit in with him during a few of his "sessions." After
trading idle chit-chat with people in Slovenia and Norway, he'll turn and
start hitting on a 15-year-old in San Jose, Calf. I've tried many
approaches to curing him of his IRC habit, but none has proved to be the
solution. I've pulled him away for hours at a time to go to dinner and
drink a few brewskis ... but all to no avail. After a couple of hours, his
hands start trembling and his eyes glaze over as his mind wanders back to
all the people that could be logged into IRC.

At that point, I know it's useless to engage him in further banter. I
reluctantly allow him to go home and log back in -- if he ever logged out
to begin with.

And so he sits, bathed in the pale glow of his monitor, as life slowly
ticks away.